Stay Dangerous (South Kenton Stories: Foe Dub Fo’ Life #7)

Richard Alvarez

My first memory, if I looked back far enough, was my mother holding a knife to her throat.

Fredo, my brother, was asleep in our room, like I should have been.

My father Pooh locked eyes with me, which made my mother turn around.

That’s when I saw the knife.

Her face was a mixture of shock and fear, but regret, at least in my memory of the event, was absent.

And judging by how the rest of her life played out, I believe my memory is accurate.

Taking advantage of my distraction, Pooh rushed her, wrapping his arms around her. He flung the knife away as she screamed for him to get off of her, before crumbling in his arms.

He didn’t. He continued to hug her, whispering something in her ear that I couldn’t hear, but it caused her shoulders to slump as they both went to the floor.

I was rooted in my spot. Watching them. Watching Pooh comfort her. Watching her fall apart in his arms.

“Go back to bed, hijo,” he rasped.

I nodded, and did what he asked.

The next day was when the lessons started.

The first lesson?

Trust no bitch.

“As soon as you let your guard down, they’ll show you their true nature. They’ll try to strike you any way they can, to take you out. Never give them a chance. Never give them the satisfaction. Keep your head on the swivel, always. And never, ever, give yo heart to one.”

Pooh may have been the most tactless when bestowing knowledge onto Fredo and my maternal cousin Ty-Ty, but he wasn’t the only adult that didn’t keep us in a child’s place.

We knew and saw everything.

Whether our family shit played out in front of us, or the adults in our lives telling us not to be like them, by six years old, many things about our family were painfully obvious.

Pooh was a pimp. He had a house in the middle of nowhere where all these women lived and worked, called The Hive. Most of his arguments with my mother were because he’d be there.

Ma wasn’t there all the way. She hated leaving her room, and would get dizzy if she stood too long.

Her sister, my aunt Aree, hated Pooh. On more than one occasion, she’d come at him with a switchblade or brandish a gun, and he'd laugh in her face while her boyfriend, my uncle Rone, would hold her back with all of his weight.

And Pooh’s mother, Nan, was over all of them, choosing to only focus on me, Fredo, and Aree and Rone’s son Ty-Ty. She thought that opening her apartment in the Birch Housing Project to us would help give Ma the room to get her mental together, so one night, Aree whisked us off.

That ended in a stand-off between her and Pooh in Nan’s living room.

Once again, I found myself unable to sleep.

Once again, Pooh drug me into a place I shouldn’t had been in, and I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.

My mother cowering behind Aree by the couch. Nan, unbothered because she knew her son would never hurt her, smoking a cigarette. My father, one hand pointing his gun at them, the other beckoning me from the safety of the dark hallway.

This time, one of his girls, one of his honeybees, bleeding by the door.

This time, I walked to him with sure steps. I didn’t know if he would ever use his gun on my mother or aunt, or even me.

I just knew my father, the man I looked like, wanted me to come to him, so I did.

“Hold it down for me,” he crooned, squeezing my shoulder with affection. “I’ll be back for you and Fred next weekend.”

I nodded, and his lips twitched.

He turned to walk away, keeping the gun pointed at them. His honeybee was out of the door first, but he stopped to turn to my mother.

“The only way you’ll be rid of me is if you go through with it, cari?a. And we both know you won’t. When you’re done having your little tantrum, maybe I’ll come back for you, too.”

As soon as he slammed the door, she broke apart again. Aree comforted her, swearing she’d kill him. Nan pulled out her third cigarette since I walked in.

I just turned around, got Fredo and Ty-Ty out of the closet, and went back to sleep.